Someday We'll Leave the Light On
by dktsubani
Summary: It is not a question of whether or not we pass the genin exam; it is a question of, Who will be on the team? [Inuzuka!OC, Second/Third Shinobi War, AU]
1. flickering flame

. . .

It starts with something like this:

In the heat-haze of a summer day, children and dogs alike chase after each other, tripping over cobblestone-paths and medicinal gardens that some of the clan members keep. They laugh without a care in the world, never mind that those around them are regularly soaked in blood.

I run with them – run and run and run, till the sun dies on the horizon and moon rises, till the stars resurrect themselves from the not-dead, till the air clears and scents become sharper, till the darkness throws itself over our home.

Konohagakure.

The Village Hidden In the Leaves. Home of the Will of Fire. It is a contradiction that no one else seems to notice, or care.

Fair enough. This is an abnormal world; what is one more abnormality that will slip by, unnoticed by the masses?

(Not well, but the Inuzuka stand sentry and _understand_ the burdens of a prodigy. They know better than to out one of their own as a suspected genius. They are not like the Uchiha, who need to flaunt their accomplishments with sneers and alpha-challenges, nor are the like the Hyuuga, with their stiff prides and stiffer sense of their so-called _'nobility.'_

They watch, and wait, and understand, and under their steady gazes the abnormality is swept away into the wind, its life unremarked upon.)

. . .

This is what happens:

The war ends. Konohagakure licks its wounds, and comes home.

The new generation will live to see a world without war – or at least, that is the hope of the returning.

Hidden Leaf lives to see a new Hokage, and Sarutobi Hiruzen sets it on the path of new life.

(Not healing; never healing, for some. But a new life, a _better_ life, after the Great War –

That will have to be good enough.)

. . .

The Inuzuka are the Dog Clan; this much is fact. We have ninken as our partners, who we will grow old with, kami-sama willing. We fight with them. We intend to die with them, from the day we receive them.

(In the war, many have. But there are just as many nin that come home without their canine-selves, and just as many ninken that curl up in the clan shrine and wait for death to take them.)

In general, five-years-old is when the Academy takes students. Five-years-old is also when the Inuzuka receive their canine companions.

In the midst of heat-haze and sunlight-raining-down, I and four other Inuzuka children stand before the clan head in the main courtyard. Before the sun takes its place in the center of the sky, we will be considered two halves of a whole.

Nin and ninken.

Some fidget. Some strain themselves, attempt to seek beyond the clan head and snatch a glimpse of the future partners behind him.

I am not they.

Inuzuka Shiga is assigned to Shiromaru, a white dog without a fleck of color on his fur.

(He is small, and short, and today he is scrawny but tomorrow-one-year-two-years-from-now he will be big, and he will be fitting of the name Inuzuka.

She is short and sometimes-too-smart and runs-too-fast and her clansmen worry that one day, she will disappear into the wind, never to return.

They are highly suited for each other.)

Shiromaru whines and tilts his head.

I look at him.

(_You're scary-lookin', you know. All stern and frowny._

"I know."

_Okay, just thought you might wanna know._ He rolls over and shifts in the courtyard dirt, streaking his pelt with dust. _Belly-rub?_

We are still children, in the eyes of the village. In the eyes of the world.

And until we graduate from the Academy, until they deem us ready to hold weapons and soak ourselves in blood and die a gruesome death – _all in the name of the village_ – that is all we will ever be.

I sigh and run small hands over the abdomen.

_Ha! Got ya to smile!_)

. . .

At the Academy, we learn weak points. Stealth and its uses. Throwing kunai and shuriken, in addition to taijutsu and ninjutsu. How to injure and kill the human body, _kunai to the jugular, the spinal cord, the brain –_

At home, we learn to work together with our ninken. Share our lives with them. Become one-mind-two-bodies, learn techniques that morph the body and shred human flesh and bone so easily.

The entirety of the clan teaches its children; there are no single-mother single-fathers here. We are pack.

(It is so much like the mindset of the Hatake Clan, as small as it is, given their Dog Summoning Contract, and is that not a twisted irony? Because everyone in Konoha is a comrade – one of the few truths that the village teaches.

Comrade is war-brother-war-sister is Pack.

And Pack is sacred.)

. . .

In the clan complex, we run.

Run against each other against our ninken against ourselves against the wind. Run and run and _run,_ until the wind carries us away, chasing wisps of something just out of reach, stars in the dark when they spiral away into the sky, the sun across its journey in the heavens.

It tears the breath out of our lungs and leaves us gasping for breath, but it accomplishes its purpose, and the children laugh and think nothing of it.

The adults have a grim turn to their lips as they look on, and Shiromaru presses himself against my leg, a warm weight by my side.

And we _run._

. . .

It is not a question of whether or not we pass the genin exam; it is a question of, _Who will be on the team?_

. . .

Aside from Shiromaru-and-I, the same four other Inuzuka children that I had received my ninken partner alongside graduate from the Academy.

The classroom is nearly empty, the only sounds the scuffles of feet-on-wood and claws-on-wood. The air smells of anticipation and tension – I can see on the faces of my clansmen that they smell it too. We sit down together in the back corner, still a pack-of-ten even though soon we all will be separated.

"Team Three: Inuzuka Mimi…"

One of our own stands up with her dog – _Mimi-and-Kiiromaru, one of the best at taijutsu –_ and moves to the front of the classroom, then leaves.

Team Four has no one from our corner.

"Team Five: Akimichi Kenji, Inuzuka Shisen…"

Another. Shisen-and-Kuraimaru, ninjutsu-focused. They leave with a skip to their steps and a fierce grin on their faces.

"Team Six: Hatake Sakumo, Inuzuka Shiga…"

Shiromaru nudges my hand, and I rise to my feet and walk to the door.

Outside sun. Clear air. Street-dust and scents-of-life.

The team waits on a Training Ground, and Hatake smells like grass-and-lightning, crackling just underneath the senses. Nara Hisoka is wood-and-soil, from the forest around the Nara Clan.

Our new instructor is blood-and-death and… something else.

Something familiar enough to _remember,_but not enough to _recognize._

_There is something odd._

I know.

"Hello students; I am Utatane Koharu, and I will be your jounin-instructor."

. . .

Later, Shiromaru and I realize – the scent that had been wrapped around our sensei had been of Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Hokage.

(Everyone in the Inuzuka who serves Konoha knows the scent of the Hokage. It's hard not to, since it's from such a distinctive man.

The clan head is the Alpha, but Sarutobi-sama is the _Hokage._

The Village comes before the Clan.

But in the end, the entire Village is Pack, so no one cares.

No one has a _need_ to care.)

. . .

("So. You guys been alright?"

Kiiromaru slaps his tail against the floor and slumps. Mimi sighs, her hand tangled in her ninken-partner's fur.

_Not… really._

"I'd have been fine with just Takei, but _no,_ I got the stupid _Uchiha _too_._ He thinks he's so _good,_ so _amazing,_ so, so…" Mimi ends the sentence with a half-growl, frustration underlying her scent of anger. Shisen next to her slings an arm over her shoulders and scrubs Mimi's hair.

"Maa, maa, Mimi. Lay off on 'em ol' sticks-in-the-mud. And you, Shiga? How was your team?"

"I got Hatake. And Nara." Shiromaru sighs with me.

There are sympathetic winces around the group, and Hoko snorts while his own partner makes a laugh-snort. "Hatake's fine, but a lazy-ass? Ha. Good luck then."

But Hatake had been surprisingly kind, in that first meeting with Koharu-sensei and the team. Nara had been the epitome of the stereotype of his clan, lazy and unmotivated. But only to those that don't _look_, because whatever you do, it's difficult for unknowing genin to hide scent. Especially from an Inuzuka.

And yet. Still. "I'll need it.")

. . .

Sakumo is easy-going, with a quick wit and humor to match. He wields his blade with the swiftness of long-borne practice, and weaves lightning-that-does-not-strike through his fingers.

Hisoka yawns often and complains even more, but dances with the shadows and lays traps with brutal efficiency all the same. He brings lunch offers to host dinner – (_"All my mother's idea, I swear to kami-sama."_) and the rest of us smile and nod along.

Koharu-sensei likes to laugh, a quiet sort of sound, but Inuzuka ears pick up more than people give us credit for. She is the trap-picker of our team, seeing things that we cannot see but are beginning to learn to. Part of it is experience; and yet the larger part is sheer _talent._

Shiromaru-and-I look around.

_We can work with this._

It'll be interesting, at least.

We throw ourselves into the spar side-by-side, a twist of chakra and will, and –

"_Shikyaku no Jutsu!"_

. . .

Utatane Koharu and Sarutobi Hiruzen are teammates. It makes sense for them to bring their two teams together, to meet.

Team Six meets Team Seven.

The results are…

_Interesting?_

That's a word for it, I suppose.

Sakumo attempts to pull Orochimaru into the conversation, ever-friendly and unwilling to see what the village tells him to see – _Is that snake that I smell?_ Your nose doesn't lead you astray, Shiromaru. That's a snake-scent alright. _Well, that explains the stray scales around his shoes, then._ – and Hisoka nods and dozes off to the Senju Princess's ramblings.

Shiromaru-and-I are left standing with Jiraiya. He does not have the Toad Summoning Contract yet, though the smell of damp-water is hovering around him, all the same.

Very… odd habits or not, he is still Konoha-nin. Still Konoha-pack.

"…you wanna know what stupid things my teammates have gotten into these days?"

"…it possibly can't be worse Orochi-teme burning water while attempting to cook, can it?"

We both give him a grin, ignoring the _"You swore you would never speak about that, Jiraiya!"_ in the background and Sakumo's laughter and Hisoka's sigh and Tsunade-hime's roll-of-eyes. The future-not-yet Toad Sannin gives us a horrified look at the sharpened canines.

"You have _no idea._"

. . .

After that, Team Six and Team Seven meets together more often. Most of the time, it goes something like this:

Sakumo somehow talks Orochimaru into talking about his snakes, their lives, their habits. Hisoka naps in the shade by Tsunade-hime, his quiet suiting her need for it.

And Jiraiya and Shiromaru-and-I end up talking about seals, of all things, while Koharu-sensei and the Hokage murmur under-wind and under-breath.

(Because fuuinjutsu is _so much_ like the technological language of the-life-before, underneath buried memories and new-life and Shiromaru and Pack. Because as long as it has been, as much as it is healthier to _let it go_ –

I have always been a selfish person. And if I take more of an interest in sealing for full reasons that only I will ever know, Shiromaru only grumbles and does not speak, and no one comments.)

Jiraiya is not talented with seals, does not have a natural inclination for them, only the ruthless drive to learn and learn and _learn._

Shiromaru-and-I respect that.

Still, that means that when we take the chuunin exams, Sakumo is the kenjutsu-and-tracking specialist, Hisoka is the strategist-and-tactician, and Shiromaru-and-I are ninjutsu, yes, and our clan techniques, but also _fuuinjutsu._

. . .

Suzaku's Eternal Fire entwined within the script of Ameterasu's Heavenly Sun Mirror. Fujin's Divine Breath coupled with Raijin's Lightning Strike. Bridge of the Dragon King overlaying High Tide of the Sea and Susanoo's Tempest Squall.

Fuuinjutsu is not limited to barriers, chakra sealing, chakra healing.

(Time-space jutsus.)

Fuuinjutsu, in and of itself, equals an entire _language_ – with the nuances and implications there-in. There are multiple interpretations. There is a _reason_ that it is a difficult and dangerous area to master.

Intent is_ everything._

. . .

No one is surprised when we pass, and graduate.

The Inuzuka throw a party for all of the new chuunin this year – (_Shisen-and-Kuraimaru, Hoko-and-Hiyamaru, Shiromaru-and-I_) and everyone attends.

(No one is surprised when Sakumo stays over until the next day, nor are they surprised when they find Jiraiya and Shiromaru-and-I talking seals well into the night.)

. . .

Most genin teams dissolve themselves after they achieve chuunin rank.

(There is no reason for them to meet, to train, to live and learn together. Not anymore.)

But Team Six is not _most teams,_ and we make it through another year, intact.

Koharu-sensei drops by occasionally, when we need a jounin to accompany our all-chuunin team on a mission.

Team Seven has broken up, however, and scattered to the winds. Shiromaru-and-I see only Jiraiya regularly these days – the Hokage has his duties to attend to, and Tsunade-hime has reportedly taken over the hospital to start rewriting medical procedures.

Orochimaru disappears into R&D and into his labs, as the whispers among the villagers get darker and darker and he becomes something less than human and it is then that something in Sakumo starts to _crack._

(But there is nothing we can do for him, because for us Orochimaru has never been Pack and _will never be._)

. . .

(…in hindsight, Orochimaru's leaving of Sakumo in the cold is the first slip on a highly slippery slope into downfall, no matter how bright our future had seemed.)

. . .

Sakumo's parents die.

(_It is the last straw._)

. . .

ANBU is for the broken.

The very _nature_ of the Inuzuka means that unless someone loses their ninken partner, or their entire families, or something similar or greater in trauma, no one joins the shadow corps.

And even then, the clansmen always catch them before they fall.

(Because clan is family is _Pack._)

_ANBU is for the broken,_ the clan teaches us, stern eyes keeping attention and stern tongues keeping us from asking more. _ANBU is for the broken, and that is all you need to know._

_If you think a packmate is heading down that path, stop them. _

. . .

("…why are you doing this?"

"_Why?_" A bitter laugh escapes my mouth, wrenched from my throat and given life in chocked form. "You call us a _team_ and a _family_ and _you dare to ask why?_"

Shiromaru growls from where he sits, eye-to-eye to a knocked-over Sakumo. He is larger now, so much larger than the day that Team Six had been created, all sleek muscle-and-bone. Built for speed, built for strength.

But in this case, built to make our idiot-of-a-packmate Sakumo _understand._

"Do you even know what ANBU _is?_" There is a shout to the edge of my words, now, and it grates against the ears but Shiromaru does not comment and Sakumo averts his gaze and Hisoka frowns ever-so-slightly and I press on. "ANBU is for the broken people, Sakumo. The ones that lost everything. It's not just 'the elite of the elite' – hell, it's not even just the shadow heroes that everyone says they are."

"I _know_ that." His words are quiet, but when he raises his head Sakumo's eyes are filled with lightning. _Fitting._ "And I _have_ lost everything. Or did my parents' death completely pass _you_ by, an air-headed Inuzuka who's to _feral_ to see past your own nose?"

Shiromaru _snarls_ at that and I grit my teeth – _We have _earned _this place on the team, and feral has nothing to do with it,_ he says and I twine my fingers in his fur and wish for nothing else than to take Sakumo down, right here, right now, nothing but us and blood-on-teeth and fight-for-dominance – but it is Hisoka who speaks first.

"Don't take us for fools," he says, and his voice takes on the hard edge that means he is _serious._ Sakumo shuts up and _finally starts to listen_. "Or are _you_ idiotic enough to not have eyes for us, who're_ your_ genin team? The ones that you called 'family, through thick and thin, through disasters and nightmares, good days and bad'? _That_ kind of family?"

The silver-haired startles and blinks and stares at Hisoka, then at us, then at our Nara packmate again. He starts to speak, eyes to us and lightning there no longer, but Shiromaru-and-I do not hear; we are already gone, only air in our wake.

_Run and run and run, until you are flying and one with the wind and it carries you away, chasing stars and sun alike –_)

. . .

It is… not right, to leave a packmember hurting.

_He hurt us first._

It isn't anything we haven't heard before.

_But we never expected it to come from _him.

That's… true. But Hisoka has it in-hand. They'll be fine.

Shiromaru curls up beside me, and together we watch the sky.

. . .

_He hadn't meant for his words to hurt, but they had. _

_Well, no, that was a lie. He had known full-well what had been coming out of his mouth – he had just chosen not to _care.

_(The disappointment from Hisoka coupled with his guilt_ hurts_, like a kunai taken to the flesh, and the part of his mind affected by the Summoning Contract whines and wishes to crawl back, throat bared, to make amends.)_

_He finds her on top of the hill in Training Ground Fourteen, her ninken's head in her lap and the both of them cloud-watching. He knows they know he is here – he is upwind of them, something he'd known but hadn't wanted to change._

_Sakumo had wanted to give her the choice to leave and not Confront him, if she had wished._

_The fact that she did not take that out does not make him feel any better._

They've defaulted,_ Hisoka whispers under-breath from by his side, and Sakumo understands._

_Inuzuka and Hatake have had better relations, lately. And more than that, he has been on a team with one for his genin career, and most of his chuunin, now._

_He approaches her with eyes-down and hands-without-weapons, coming as close as he can to slinking towards her while in shinobi uniform. There is a flick of dark eyes at him when he gets close enough for him to scent her properly, and Shiromaru raises his head to growl and Sakumo _flinches_ back, a whine in his throat –_

_Then Shiga is _there,_ eyes a wild storm and fangs bared. Her chin is tilted inward, protecting her throat, and there is a growl, louder than her ninken-partner's, that shocks his nerves and raises the hair on the back of his neck._

Shiga _has_ defaulted, _Sakumo realizes._

_And there is only one language that an Inuzuka will understand when they've defaulted, and the last Hatake alive bares his own throat gladly, closing his eyes as he does so._

_He will not Confront her, nor Challenge. He had lost the right when he had hurt his teammate with words, when he _knows_ full-well what insults an Inuzuka endures from shinobi and civilians alike._

_Instead, he lets her Judge._

. . .

"I'm sorry for what I said. It was wrong of me, and arrogant. I _know_ you and Shiromaru and Hisoka have been trying to help, and Koharu-sensei too, even though she's too busy to be effective at all. But I _do_ know what I'm getting into, Shiga. I know the risks of going ANBU, as well as the benefits. And it's not that I've lost enough things that I want to lose myself in missions. You and Hisoka reminded me of that. But I still have enough to _lose,_ and – and we all know what sorts of missions that ANBU takes. We're not genin anymore, we _know_. And I don't want you, or Shiromaru, or Hisoka to be taking those."

A sigh, and Hisoka tilts his head at the both of us after Sakumo's rant. The Hatake still stands, eyes down, throat bared, and something makes it through the haze over Shiromaru-and-I. "Sakumo's not being an idiot with this, Shiga," he explains calmly. My fingers curl over Shiromaru's fur more tightly, but he does not comment; he is still standing threateningly, every line of his body a Challenge. "I've listened to his reasons. They're valid. And with the amount that he's trained and we've given him hell for, he stands a good chance of coming back from ANBU missions in one piece."

_And he doesn't need permission from us to join the shadow corps,_ is what he does not say, but Shiromaru-and-I hear it all the same.

…

It is a choice, then.

Say no, or let our packmate choose his path?

(Keep Sakumo with us, or let him go?)

. . .

A breeze.

Whispers on the breeze, words under-breath, and Hatake Sakumo sighs, and embraces his two teammates and the ninken-partner.

(Today, they are a team of two-and-two-halves. Tomorrow, they will be scattered leaves on the wind.

It tears his heart to do this, but he knows his reasons are good. Valid, even – Hisoka had listened, and thought, and critiqued but he had not revolted.

A Nara's insight is almost as valuable as a Yamanaka's, in situations like these.)

Shiga slaps him upside-the-head, and Sakumo grins and Hisoka sighs and rolls his eyes while Shiromaru coughs a not-laugh, and the world rights itself.

. . .

It is an end, but not _the_ end.

Maybe, just maybe, with Hisoka Intel's darling and Sakumo a rookie in ANBU and Shiromaru-and-I fulfilling Clan duties and working fuuinjutsu with Jiraiya in the meantime, this can be the start of something _new_ –

. . .

It starts with the Daimyo of the Land of Earth getting greedy, and Iwagakure pushing their borders.

It ends with the culmination of the Second Shinobi World War.

. . .

* * *

><p>...<p>

Author's Notes

Hello everyone, and welcome to **Someday We'll Leave the Light On**.

I've muddled through the nightmare that is Naruto fanfiction after the series ended, and couldn't find a lot of Inuzuka!OCs, which I thought was interesting. And what do you do when you can't find something you want? You write it, of course.

Hence, this fic.

I hope that "Shiromaru-and-I" didn't confuse people _too_ much; in the conversations where Shiga seems to be talking without quotation marks, she's largely speaking to Shiromaru, her ninken partner. So italics and no-quotations for those conversations is how I wrote this.

As you've noticed already, this is going to be majorly AU. Not only is Inuzuka Shiga learning fuuinjutsu alongside Jiraiya, she and Nara Hisoka are going to be acting as touchstones and grounders for one Hatake Sakumo.

(What will this mean? You'll have to wait and see, of course. c:)

Aside from canon pairings, this fic will largely be _gen._ **Someday**, as it's nicknamed, will be updated relatively often, as I have the plot mostly planned out and the muse to write it, as well as the time, now that midterms are over.

...that should be it.

Please remember to leave a review, and safe travels,

- dktsubani


	2. shifting

. . .

_The world pulses, twines itself into a shape not its own, and you recognize the handiwork of your Uchiha teammate. The illusion drapes itself over the field, touching you-and-Shiromaru and your squad, but not affecting. The Hidden Rock nin slow, then stop, caught in an unending nightmare of blood-night and burning-flames, you know._

The Uchiha can be surprisingly vindictive,_ you allow yourself a moment to think, then gesture to your ninken-half. He grins back at you, then settles himself at your side._

_Two wolf-demons, crouching in the foreign soil of Stone Country._

"Gatenga!"

_Your fellow Konoha nin follow in the bloody wake of your charge, slitting throats and dealing death –_

All in the name of the village.

. . .

There is – no one, good way to describe war.

Some describe it as hell, with the screams of the dying and the dead roaring in the ears, blood spilling like river water, bodies torn to shreds amid jutsus and fire-lightning.

Our ancestors had lived through this, once. In that first World War that felled the Niidaime Hokage.

(Koharu-sensei had been on that team. She has only mentioned the… incident, once. And never again.

But she has never failed to describe _war_, and her words are adequate enough to embody the pure _chaos._)

Shiromaru-and-I are not the only Inuzuka out on the frontlines, fighting. Mimi-and-Kiiromaru are somewhere behind, wreaking havoc the way only they seem to do. Hoko-and-Hiyamaru are somewhere in the mess, and the only way Shiromaru-and-I can find them accurately is by chakra-sensing.

The battlefield is… too overwhelming, otherwise. There are too many scents, too many sounds of blood-metal-clashing-kunai-jutsu-lighting-up-like-fireworks, as Inuzuka cannot simply turn off enhanced senses, though blocking is possible.

(But the chakra drain of blocking can _kill_ in a war zone, so most choose to forego and endure. Shiromaru-and-I are one of them.)

When we arrive back at camp, battered and bruised but still _alive_, one of the ANBU standing guard throws us a concerned glance.

Normally, that is not anything new – half-dead from chakra-exhaustion tends to worry everyone, in the field. But this one, particular ANBU –

Shiromaru-and-I stare at the familiar chakra-sense and scent, underneath the layers of mud and dirt and chakra suppression.

(There is no forgetting the marks of one you have fought and bled with, especially if they had been on your genin team – even if they _are_ ANBU level, with ANBU level suppression and all that implies.)

_Is that –_

Sakumo? Possibly.

Shiromaru-and-I eye the black-cloak and white-mask for a moment, taking in the lanky figure and haggard set to the shoulders. There is still a… burning in the chakra, still lightning, still flickering. And he looks better, like he fits into his own skin, now. Not like he had been _before_.

…_he looks as if he has been doing well._

ANBU… suits him. More than I care to admit. But we both _know_ what sort of work he does, what he's required to do –

_Just trust him, Shiga. Sakumo's a grown shinobi. He can take care of himself._

He'd better. Or I'll kick in the door to the Shinigami's realm and drag him back to life, then kill him _myself_.

Shiromaru chokes a not-quite-a-laugh, and then when a medic has finished healing us, we throw ourselves into the fray once again, unheeding of the blood-dying-dead.

(There are words unspoken, not even between the two of us, but that's alright. We don't need words to understand.

Because we are Shiromaru-and-Shiga, and that makes all the difference.)

. . .

After an encounter with Hanzo the Salamander, and a decimated clearing, and more bandages used and blood lost than I ever care to remember, the rumors of the _Densetsu no Sannin's _begin to circulate the battlefield, instilling a new wind beneath the Leaf-nin and a damning sense of terror in the enemies'.

. . .

(Half-a-year later, Sakumo is ordered to shed his ANBU mask on his second rotation at the frontlines against Iwa.

_For the morale of the troops,_ the Hokage says when he is asked why, and nothing else, though he does let Wolf return to the ANBU ranks after a while.

Still, the return to secrecy had not been soon enough, and the true extent of _The Professor's_ conniving sense of psychological warfare is made clear.

Rumors of _the White Fang of Konohagakure_ begin to circulate the battlefields, and with the same effects of the rumors of the _Densetsu no Sannin_ – better morale, more camaraderie between Leaf-nin.

_The Professor has earned his name for a reason_.)

. . .

"Yo, Jiraiya. Heard you got yourselves famous and all."

Said now-Toad Sannin sighs and scrubs the back of his neck. He smears blood-and-ink on his skin, remnants of his work and his participation of the bloody battlefield we're currently standing in. He smirks, wryly. "That still didn't save me from being assigned brats."

There are surprisingly large areas of non-dangerous terrain that the medics are using to treat Konoha ninja. But for even something as helpful as that, there is a trade-off. "Brats that you're currently neglecting, I'm guessing?"

Jiraiya coughs and smiles. "The War doesn't take kindly to any of the Sannin staying at home."

And it's true – with even a month of the Sannin beside me missing from the battlefield, Iwa had pressed, _hard,_ into our own lines. It had been amid that chaos that Sakumo had earned his name.

_And so did we,_ Shiromaru says petulantly, and I spare him a sharp grin with too-many-teeth before returning to Jiraiya. "Well, at least you're doing _something _useful out here, unlike anything you'd probably do in Konoha. And this year's Academy crop isn't even _close_ to graduation yet, anyway. Anything I can do?"

The man hums, ignoring the jab at his habits and silently acknowledging the point, before handing over the half-completed seal in his hand. "If you can stabilize that without the Fire Release blowing up in our faces, that'd be helpful."

I flap a hand at him, already concentrating on reading his own brand of chicken-scratch-calligraphy and madness-and-ash-filled-fuuinjutsu script to pay any more than half-an-attention. Shiromaru responds instead, in the toothy-smile and _Of course we can._

"…you just _had_ to combine Amaterasu's Heavenly Sun Mirror with the Dragon on the Mountain, _why_ would you do that?"

Jiraiya makes a face at me, which I ignore and Shiromaru snorts at. "I'm trying to make this compatible with Konoha shinobi, for once, and not just a specialized thing."

"So Sun Mirror for amplification, and Dragon on the Mountain for stabilization." This time it's my turn to hum. Shiromaru tilts his head for a moment, and barks.

Jiraiya gives him a look, and I translate – "Even Shiromaru agrees with me, unless you have a Fire Release equal to the Sun Mirror sigil, the Dragon on the Mountain will overwhelm the fire-type fuuinjutsu. And your current general Fire Storage tag isn't going to balance it. Which is why it's been blowing up in your face, because the rest of the seal isn't _meant_ to be earth-type, _which it turned into_."

The Sannin blinks, then rubs a hand over his face. "To put it in context, I was working on that just last night," he admits. He doesn't look as if he's slept.

"…you worked on this while sleep-deprived."

"…yes?"

"…fine, I'll fix this. Go sleep."

Shiromaru helpfully steers Jiraiya away before he can make even _more_ sleep-deprived mistakes, leaving me alone with his half-crazy seal.

_Densetsu no Sannin_ or not, a _rapidly-becoming genius_ with seals or not, Jiraiya is still a _man _and has mortal needs.

(_Take care of Pack,_ is the whisper inside the mind, and I know Shiromaru can feel it too.)

. . .

No matter how famous one gets – _even on the heels of the Legendary Sannin, on the White Fang, for having skills that you _fought for_ so that you could be _somethingmore_ than just _"Inuzuka" – everyone is still mortal.

Shiromaru takes a kunai to the leg, and normally that isn't a problem, but that is also the leg that he'd broken only the week before. Tsunade-hime sends us back without letting us get a word in otherwise.

Most Inuzuka clansmen, when home on off-rotation or on medical leave, tend to spend their days in the clan compound. Quietly. Peacefully.

(Of course, there are always those that _don't,_ but they are the minority than the majority.)

Shiromaru-and-I… have never really been the said majority.

. . .

Torn-up, scratched, dried blood crusting on the edges, and having been delivered by a messenger-toad: _Fire Release went well, you were right, Iwa currently missing a battalion. Also running out of explosive tags._

A sigh later, the toad returns with a spare roll of explosive tags and: _Good. Are you using me as the supply depot instead of the official one? Should I be demanding compensation?_

_Sakumo says hi. Secrecy seals this time._ This message is written on a scrap sheet of fuuinjutsu paper, written in plain ink, not the chakra-infused one. Shiromaru snorts at it and its blatent side-stepping (_He could just _ask,he grumbles, _and not resort to amateur psychology_), but helpfully fetches the roll of pre-prepared secrecy seals.

_Tell Sakumo that if he doesn't come back in one piece I'll maim him myself. Give me some warning before you demand seals._

Later, when Shiromaru-and-I are teaching some of the clan children the very beginnings of the Inuzuka-specific jutsu, comes by toad: _Sakumo says he loves you too. Should I be starting to write a romance novel about this? Might need Lightning Release tags soon._

Hisoka – an Intel agent, now, one of the best, but still as lazy as ever – doesn't need any more reason to start laughing. _Hisoka tells me that it should be a threesome, at the very least. Here's some Lightning Release, _DO NOT_ electrocute the rest of your supplies like you did last time. That way lies explosions._

_Threesome it is. Lightning Release worked well, you might want to think of adding Water sigils in there too. And _that was only one time._ Always need more explosive tags._

(There is rarely time to draw out a full roll of whatever-seal-is-needed, in the front lines. Ninja networking is kami-sama's blessing, sometimes.

And when we're dealing with death?

…it's not the first time that Team Six – and the extension of Team Seven, so much that sometimes it's Team-Six-and-Team-Seven – has been separated.

_Village-Pack above all._)

. . .

During a war, vacation cannot be permanent.

Konohagakure's second rotation of jounin return to the frontlines.

We go with them, and in our trail is ash-dust-blood-fangs-ripping-into-flesh.

"Where in hell did you _come_ from?!" Sakumo shouts at us. He's out of the ANBU uniform for once – _back on duty as the White Fang._

_Where's the fun in telling you that?_ Shiromaru howls back, and I laugh as Shiromaru-and-I tear into the frontlines, Sakumo at my back, Hisoka at my flank. The _Densetsu no Sannin_ are somewhere in this final stand between major shinobi villages.

War or not, we need to get our amusement from _somewhere._

(Grim, morbid amusement, but war is not fluffy-puppies-and-sugar.)

. . .

Somewhere in the madness, protected by the fury that is an-Inuzuka-with-a-packmate-under-fire, Senju Nawaki _does not die._

(…somewhere in the madness, in blood-dying-dead, Katou Dan _does._

The Inuzuka tend to take care of their clan members' interests in said clan member's absence, and Senju Tsunade and her younger brother had fallen under that category.

A battlefield away and a medic doing his duty, Katou Dan… had been overlooked.

…

…

…I cannot bring myself to regret it, as Katou Dan would have not – he had died protecting a patient.)

. . .

…but eventually, the war ends, and we come home, and Shiromaru-and-I laugh and scrub Sakumo's spiky silver hair and drag Hisoka to dinner at the Inuzuka compound.

(The next day there are funerals – tens of hundreds and maybe even thousands of them, in memorial of those that had fallen in the war.

Senju Tsunade weeps at the photograph of a white-haired man, but moves on: she is not the grief-stricken women that could-have-been, nor does she fear the slightest sign of blood. She takes in her lover's niece, instead.)

Many a change.

_Change will be good._

I hope to kami-sama they will be.

. . .

The world moves on.

(The shadows don't, and the knives are sharpened in the dark, where only those who know where to look can _see._)

. . .

Sakumo gets a girlfriend_. _Specifically, he gets his girlfriend _pregnant._

"_How did that happen?!"_

"Ahaha… you see…"

. . .

Hatake Sakumo's wedding to one Nishimura Chieko is attended by many a high-ranking person from Konohagakure.

Koharu-sensei stands in as groom's mother, Hisoka is godfather, and I am godmother – or, with Shiromaru, the _other_ set of godparents, Sakumo jokes.

The newly named Hatake Chieko laughs, leans back into her new husband, and smiles at us all with pure _content._

(Hatake Chieko is a civilian. She is one of the people that us shinobi, the _ninja_, go on with our blood-soaked lives – so that _they _may not have to.

One of the Academy oaths involves a swearing of duty to the civilians of Konohagakure.

From what Shiromaru-and-I can tell, we are one of the few – if not the _only_ – village that does this.)

_Just one more thing that sets us apart from the others._

Indeed, I murmur to Shiromaru, and together we laugh at Jiraiya getting plastered with sake and Sakumo pushing at the Toad Sannin, Orochimaru and Hisoka muttering by themselves and shaking their heads at the sight, Tsunade-hime beside me absolutely and completely ignoring the men, drinking her own bottle of sake. The older generation sits to the side, quietly talking amongst themselves about this and that.

(No doubt there is _some_ political maneuvering here, but the rest of the eyes are on the new couple. Admittedly, they _do_ look highly happy, for which Shiromaru-and-I – and the rest of team-Pack – are profoundly glad.)

The war is _over._

Shiromaru-and-I grin at Tsunade-hime and together, we watch our people.

. . .

A few weeks later, Jiraiya introduces Shiromaru-and-I to his brats.

Yamanaka Inoichi, Watanabe Akemi, and _Namikaze Minato_ stare back at us. Behind them, Jiriaya is _grinning._

. . .

_The heavens move, and the path of reality – shifts._

_..._

* * *

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Author's Notes

Yes. That just happened. *evil cackling*

Questions for you all: what most surprised you? What _didn't?_

Though I have to say, there will be _fun times_ ahead. :D

(Also, making up seals and how they work. Did anyone like that? Did anyone _not?_ I'd really appreciate it if you gave me your thoughts on that, as fuuinjutsu has to be my favorite part about **Someday** in general, in addition to snowballing the consequences of one Inuzuka Shiga-and-Shiromaru. :3)

Please leave a review, and safe travels,

- dktsubani

EDIT 18/03/2015: many thanks to **Jade Celandine** for catching the uploading mistake. /kicks at


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